1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, and more particularly to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material which is improved on the preservability thereof in aging under high temperature/high humidity atmospheric conditions.
2. Description of the State of the Art
It is well known that silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials are exposed to light and then color-developed in the presence of such a color developing agent as an aromatic primary amine developing agent, whereby dye images are obtained. Namely, when a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material, after being exposed to light, is color-developed in the presence of an aromatic primary amine developing agent, the developing agent reduces the silver halide to turn it into a developed silver, and at the same time, the agent itself is oxidized to form an active oxidized product of the developing agent, which oxidized product of the developing agent then reacts with couplers to thereby form dyes. The dyes obtained herein are cyan, magenta and yellow dyes, and those which produce these dyes are cyan couplers, magenta couplers and yellow couplers, respectively. Those already known yellow couplers include open-chain ketomethylene compounds, those known cyan couplers include .alpha.-naphthol and phenol compounds, and those known magenta couplers include 5-pyrazolone compounds, pyrazolobenzimidazole compounds and pyrazolotriazole compounds.
As the cyan coupler for high-speed silver halide color negative-type photographic light-sensitive materials, naphthol-type couplers have conventionally been used. The naphthol-type couplers have a favorable characteristic that the cyan dye formed by the reaction thereof with the oxidized product of a color developing agent has little subabsorption in the green portion of the longer wavelength region of the absorption spectrum thereof; the little subabsorption being advantageous for color reproductions.
There has been increasingly arising a strong demand for further improvement of image quality in recent years, and to meet such a demand, the improvement on the graininess is essential. As one of the improvement techniques there is known the increase in the coating amount of silver.
However, the increase in the coating amount of silver produces such a large drawback that, in the case of a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing a conventional naphthol-type cyan coupler, the dye formed therefrom, in the process of bleaching or bleach-fixing the developed silver, is reduced to be discolored due to a large amount of ferrous ions.
On the other hand, as the coupler that causes no reduction discoloration of the cyan dye formed therefrom in the bleaching or bleach-fixing process, there are known those phenol-type couplers having at the second position thereof a ureido group as described in, e.g., Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter referred to as Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 65134/1981, and it is also found that a favorable maximum absorption wavelength and less absorption of the green portion may be realized by the use of them in combination with compounds of a phthalic acid ester as formulated in Formula [II] relating to the invention, which will be described later.
Thus, there is no abovementioned drawback in a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing in the light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer thereof a phenol-type cyan coupler having at the second position thereof a ureido group and a compound of a phthalic acid ester, but unfortunately it has been found there is such a serious disadvantage in practical use that when the undeveloped sample is allowed to stand over an extensive period under a high temperature/high humidity atmospheric condition (e.g., 40.degree. C./80% for a week), there occurs the deteriorations of the maximum color density and of the sensitivity.
Accordingly, there has been a strong demand for the development of a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material which is such that the coating amount of silver is increased for the improvement of the graininess thereof, the dye formed therefrom is not discolored in the bleaching or bleach-fixing process, and it has a photographically desirable spectral absorption characteristic and excellent in the preservability thereof in aging under high temperature/high humidity atmospheric conditions.